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    Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing
    • Home
    • Mentoring
    • Retreats
      • Venice Writing Retreat
      • Stow-on-the-Wold Writing Weekend
      • Karoo Writing Retreat | Memoir & Fiction Getaway in South Africa
    • Courses
    • Resources
      • Free offerings for writers
      • Downloadable writing resources
      • Blog
    • About
      • About Us
      • Testimonials
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    Archives

    Tag Archives for: "how to write a short story"
     How to meet the writing challenges of 2021
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In How to write a book, Invitations
    Posted January 4, 2021

    How to meet the writing challenges of 2021

    One of the highlights of our 2020 was developing our new Hero’s Journey Course. It strikes us, though, that as we emerge fitfully from this year of the plague, we’re all embarking on our own [...]

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     Here’s what motivated you to write in 2020 (Part 2)
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    By All About Writing
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted December 28, 2020

    Here’s what motivated you to write in 2020 (Part 2)

    For over seven years, Richard Beynon, co-founder of All About Writing and designer and facilitator of our Creative Writing Course, our screenwriting courses, and more, has motivated you with his [...]

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     Rounding up the year’s top secrets to good writing (Part 1)
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    By All About Writing
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted December 23, 2020

    Rounding up the year’s top secrets to good writing (Part 1)

    All About Writing co-founder Jo-Anne Richards is the designer and facilitator of many of our courses including our flagship Creative Writing Course and our popular Saturday Writing Workshops She [...]

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     Writing Secrets: Focus on what’s important
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted December 16, 2020

    Writing Secrets: Focus on what’s important

    Something has shifted this year. We’re (many of us through necessity) spending less. We’re more aware of what’s important. That means focusing on the people we hold dear and on our creative [...]

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     Monday Motivation: The secret beneath the words
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    By Richard Beynon
    In All About Writing
    Posted December 14, 2020

    Monday Motivation: The secret beneath the words

    “Meaning” is the thing that lies behind, or beneath, or beyond. The sighs of a lover are what we note. But the meaning of those sighs is what we interpret. The speed of our hero’s response to [...]

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     Monday Motivation: How many layers can you add to your imaginary cake?
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    By Richard Beynon
    In How to write a book, Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted December 7, 2020

    Monday Motivation: How many layers can you add to your imaginary cake?

    Point of view determines the way your reader apprehends the “reality” of your protagonist’s universe, including his own interior cosmos. A single perspective shines a light on reality from just [...]

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     Writing Secrets: What brings characters to life?
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted November 18, 2020

    Writing Secrets: What brings characters to life?

    I don’t know about you, but there are characters from books that I remember quite as clearly as the people I grew up with. They are as real to me, and they helped shape the person I became just [...]

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     Monday Motivation: We love story, but it’s the characters we fall in love with
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted November 16, 2020

    Monday Motivation: We love story, but it’s the characters we fall in love with

    We might read novels for the stories they tell – but often it’s the characters in them that linger. And so it’s worth pondering some of the most memorable of character descriptions – sometimes [...]

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     Writing Secrets: The creative magic of the soft owl
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted November 11, 2020

    Writing Secrets: The creative magic of the soft owl

    “Every human situation, every sort of meeting or conversation, is something you have read before or know by heart. But then here comes a story – maybe only a couple of paragraphs in that [...]

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     Monday Motivation: Flawed champions
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted November 2, 2020

    Monday Motivation: Flawed champions

    This brings us to up to the three hundred and sixty-fifth of my Monday Morning essays – and the last of the reprises I’ve allowed myself. It was written in July, 2012 which seems like more than [...]

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     November Newsletter: Something for writers of every flavour
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In How to write a book, Newsletters
    Posted October 23, 2020

    November Newsletter: Something for writers of every flavour

    Something for writers of every flavour We’ve seen writers of every flavour in the 13 years since we started All About Writing. We’ve had young writers, older writers, first-time-picking-up-a-pen [...]

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     How can subtext help you tell your story? Join our Saturday workshop
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    By All About Writing
    In Invitations
    Posted October 20, 2020

    How can subtext help you tell your story? Join our Saturday workshop

    Join us and a community of fellow writers for a Saturday morning writing workshop. This time round, we’ll be looking at subtext and how you can use it to better tell stories. The workshop [...]

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    ✍️✍️What exactly is the Power of Writing c ✍️✍️What exactly is the Power of Writing course? ✍️✍️

The Power of Writing takes you to the heart of creative writing. Over just four online modules, the course introduces you to a handful of creative writing’s essential skills.

The Power of Writing course is designed to introduce you to the key skills of creative writing – and help you use these skills in your own writing. 

We’ve wrapped the theory around a series of practical writing exercises in four modules. The course will: 

 ✍️Help you to write confidently without constantly censoring yourself. 
 ✍️Give you tools to develop your unique writing voice. 
 ✍️Introduce you to disciplines that will continue to help you to write fluently long after the course is done. 
 ✍️Give you tools that will help you write more vividly. 
 ✍️Show you how to think more creatively and communicate this in your writing. 
 ✍️Help you get more out of books by reading actively. 

‘I have been writing for a number of years but every so often, I like to sharpen the saw. Your course is so valuable in this regard.’ – Hendie Grobbelaar

‘I thoroughly enjoyed the modules… I loved the fact that the modules are balanced. The first two do not require specific writing techniques, but exposes thoughts and observations. The last two modules start exploring the how of transforming ideas/happenings into something that works on paper.’ – Melanie du Plessis, Centurion

‘I enjoyed the introduction to each assignment, explaining what is needed with examples, especially for an online course.’ –Alma van As, Welobie

‘My experience was positive. I enjoyed the challenge… It was great focusing on writing rather than the content that one does in the daily drudge of communicating. I liked writing for the pleasure rather than rushing through the normal communications of the day – bit like “stopping to smell the roses”.’ – Charles Nesbitt, Somerset West

Sign up online: https://allaboutwritingcourses.com/product/power-of-writing-course/
    In this week's writing motivation, Richard invites In this week's writing motivation, Richard invites us to just write three good sentences. Can you avoid the trappings of being a writer and put pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard? 

Read the full piece in our Link in Bio and if you don't subscribe already, sign up via the same links.

#AllAboutWriting #allaboutwritingcourses
    "I do try to make Tannie Maria different from myse "I do try to make Tannie Maria different from myself. However, as I have become softer and plumper, I guess I’m becoming more like her. But that wasn’t my plan. Where we do overlap is in our love for the Karoo." - Sally Andrew, author of the Tannie Maria mysteries.

It was a real pleasure to host the unassuming author of the Tannie Maria mysteries, Sally Andrew, on our monthly webinar. She had much advice for would-be writers, imparted in her generous, down-to-earth style, always infused with her quirky humour. We chatted about place, about characters and about planning and writing practice. She finds it important to keep her characters as different from herself as possible. I guess I’m the same. It’s not something I’ve ever particularly striven for, yet most of my adult characters are quite different from me, in personality, preoccupations and the way they present to the world. Yet, nonetheless, I always draw on myself to some extent. I try to embody them and, for that brief period of writing, become them. In that way, I draw on what is different from me, yet still to be found, real or imagined, somewhere within me. - Jo-Anne Richards, All About Writing

Watch the replay now available at www.allaboutwritingcourses.com or visit our link in bio

#allaboutwriting #writingwebinar
    Why wait for a New Year's resolution? We've opened Why wait for a New Year's resolution? We've opened up the dates for our next LIVE Creative Writing Class starting 2027.
🦆Early bird special currently running!🦆

Transform your writing in 10 weeks. Our live Creative Writing Course gives you the skills, tools and expert guidance to tell your story – whether it’s a novel, short stories, biography or memoir.

Led by Jo-Anne Richards and Richard Beynon, this course is ideal for aspiring writers beginning their journey and established writers looking to refine their craft.

When: Thursdays from 14 January to 18 March 2027

Time: 16:00 to 20:00 GMT | 18:00 to 21:00 SAST

Sign up online: https://allaboutwritingcourses.com/product/creative-writing-course-live/

#allaboutwriting #creativewriting #onlinewritingcourse
    Next week we are joined by South African author @s Next week we are joined by South African author @sallyandrewkaroo of the bestselling Tannie Maria mysteries ( @penguinbookssouthafrica ) for a FREE online webinar. 

✍️Live Zoom Event | Monday 24 August 2026
✍️17:00 to 18:00 UK time
✍️18:00 to 19:00 South Africa Time

📚 We'll explore her recipe for success
📚 We'll talk about her latest book, Wild Things Never Die
📚 We'll explore the real ingredients of a writing life: from planning to publishing
📚 There will be a reading
📚 Live Q&A with Sally
📚 And we might even talk about a recipe or two

SIGN UP FOR FREE: Link in Bio

#allaboutwriting #freewebinar #writingwebinar #sallyandrew #writingcraft
    The All About Writing Team is thrilled to congratu The All About Writing Team is thrilled to congratulate our own Jo-Anne Richards on her publishing deal for a new non-fiction book! She has signed with Jonathan Ball Publishers and her publication date is set for April 2027. This marks Jo-Anne's 6th book and her first non-fiction title. 
Congrats, Josie! 🥂

You can stay updated with her news via our newsletters and her website: https://jo-annerichards.co.za/

@jonathanball_local @joannerichardsauthor

#allaboutwriting #joannerichards #southafricanauthor #jonathanball
    Join us for a very special *free webinar* with Sal Join us for a very special *free webinar* with Sally Andrew — bestselling author of the Tannie Maria mysteries – to talk about the recipe for success.

🌟 Live Zoom Event
🗓️ Monday 24 August 2026
⏰ 17:00 to 18:00 UK time
⏰ 18:00 to 19:00 South Africa Time

Sally's new novel, Wild Things Never Die, brings Tannie Maria and her hen Henrietta undercover with Maria’s fiancé, Detective Henk Kannemeyer, to the Karoo Wilderness Reserve. Their mission: save the vetplantjies! At the luxury game lodge, they spy on guests and support the Anti-Poaching Unit in a battle against dangerous gangsters. 

📚 We'll talk about Wild Things Never Die 
📚We'll explore the real ingredients of a writing life: from planning to publishing
📚There will be a reading
📚Live Q&A with Sally
📚And we might even talk about a recipe or two

Sally Andrew is the best-selling author of the award-winning Tannie Maria mystery novels. She lives with her artist partner in a mud-brick house on a nature reserve in the Klein Karoo. She has a master’s in Adult Education from the University of Cape Town and was a social and environmental activist. She now writes, cooks, does Biofield Tuning (sound healing), and is training to be a doowop girl. Her Tannie Maria novels include Recipes for Love and Murder, The Satanic Mechanic, Death on the Limpopo, and The Milk Tart Murders. She has also published a cookbook called Recipes to Live For. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages and adapted into an international TV series.
    ✍️Read this week’s Monday Motivation as Rich ✍️Read this week’s Monday Motivation as Richard discusses the three clauses of the writer/reader contract. ✍️

1)Unfamiliarity has to be real.
2)Surprise has to be earned.
3)Remember the felt, lasting effect of events on both characters and readers.

Three clauses, then, though really they're one obligation facing in three different directions: don't let the reader's appetite for the unfamiliar go unfed, don't let the mechanism of the surprise go unearned, and don't let the aftermath go unfelt. Break any one of them and the contract curdles – into repetition, into cheap trickery, or into a book that was pleasant enough at the time and entirely forgettable by the time you’ve turned off the light and turned over for sleep.

Uncover all three in depth in this week’s newsletter and if you don’t yet subscribe - visit our link in bio.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    Read this week’s Monday Motivation as Richard wa Read this week’s Monday Motivation as Richard walks us through a multi-character dialogue scene he is crafting and discover the key ingredients for making the scene work. 

Uncover more in this week’s newsletter and if you don’t yet subscribe - visit our link in bio.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
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